Sunday, 21 April 2013

Chocolate rum and raisin cake....and a prize giveaway

When the nice people at Mustard,
the incredibly funky online homewares store, asked me if I’d like to select
something from their site to review on my blog – and be given a second one to giveaway
as a competition prize – I felt that Christmas had come early! But what to pick? I wanted everything on the site!

I eventually chose the choc-a-bloc cake mould. It had stiff competition from the house brick
cake mould (which must've sold out now, as it's not on the site anymore) but I felt there were more occasions perhaps where one could bake a
bar of chocolate cake, than a house brick.
It sells for £8 and details of how you can win one are at the end of
this post.

Much as I like to be contrary, for the first use of this
mould it had to be a chocolate cake. The
CCD (Caked Crusader’s Da) has always had a soft spot for rum and raisin. As luck would have it my copy of Eric Lanlard’s
latest book had just arrived and I noticed a very nice chocolate rum and raisin
loaf cake. I’ve tweaked the recipe (i.e.
put the rum and raisins in the cake, rather than the ganache) and played around
with the quantities to suit this mould. The
raisins pop in your mouth with a hint of rum, which adds pleasing depth to the
chocolate cake.

Please note my comments in the recipe on the ganache – I found
its looks a little disappointing but it tasted lovely (beyond chocolate - so intense). It set firm,
quickly – look! I hardly had time to spread
it:

So, how can you win a fantastic choc-a-bloc cake mould? Simply leave a comment to this post telling
me about your favourite chocolate bar – it could be something that isn’t made
anymore, it could be something that’s in every supermarket across the country,
it might not even exist but in your dreams!
But it has to be your favourite! For
me, nothing can ever beat a four finger kitkat – particularly if you get one of
the ‘faulty’ ones where one stick is solid chocolate.

The prize is open to any readers in the UK, sorry to everyone else. Competition closes 7pm Friday 26th
April and the winner (chosen by lucky dip! I know rafflecopter etc is all the rage these
days but – for a blogger – I am actually rather old school!) will be announced
on the blog shortly after. Good luck!

For the
ganache: (NB. I found this far too much
and recommend you halve it. I also was
concerned that it was too thick – there’s soooo much chocolate in it - so I
thinned it with more cream. If you have
a reliable ganache recipe maybe use it instead of this one)

A day in advance of making the cake soak the raisins and rum
and leave in a covered bowl. Stir
occasionally.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan
oven 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Line a 900g loaf tin with baking
paper. If using a silicone mould (as I
did) use cake release spray. As my mould
was smaller, I used a 450g loaf tin to bake the leftover batter i.e. I got 2
cakes out of it!

Start by making the cake: melt
the chocolate and butter together in a bowl over a pan of simmering water –
taking care that the bowl does not touch the water.

Leave to cool.

Beat together the egg yolks and
sugar until they are pale and creamy.

Beat in the cooled chocolate
mixture and the ground almonds.

Beat in the flour and baking powder.

Stir in the rum and raisins,
making sure you don’t leave any rum in the bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg
whites until they form stiff peaks.

Take a spoonful of egg white and
stir it into the chocolate mix to slacken it.

Gently fold in the remaining egg
whites.

Spoon into the prepared tin(s)
and level the surface.

If using the 900g tin, bake for
approximately 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out
clean. If using two 450g moulds, bake
for about 30 minutes before checking.

Leave to cool in the tin(s) for
about 10 minutes before turning out and leaving to cool completely on a wire
rack.

Now make the ganache: heat the
cream and sugar in a saucepan until very hot but not boiling (i.e. what used to
be called scalding point).

Remove from the heat and add the
chocolate.

Stir until thick and glossy.

Stir in the butter. Now I might be getting old and puny but I couldn’t
do this by hand so used my kitchenaid.
The mix was very thick so I added some extra cream.

Let the ganache cool –but not set
- before finishing the cake.

Place the cake on the serving
plate and carefully spread the ganache over it.
Let it run down the sides a little.

I spend all of Sunday waiting for your blog - sad I know! But I love it and this week a competition too, you are spoiling us!

My fave chocolate bar was a bar called a secret. They were a marshmallow wrapped it spun chocolate. They came in a pack of 3 and my mum, sister and I would have one each with a hot chocolate on a Saturday. I wish they still made them but would never live up to my memory of them!

This mould is a very cute idea and you know I love moulds lol. Love the idea of the raisins full of rum popping. I would have to say that my favourite chocolate bar is from Norway 'Smash', no potato here though! It's chocolate with a baked potato snack inside, like Bugles? Hard to explain but salty and sweet, lovely :)

Fab cake, my fav choc has to be raspberry ruffle, what girl can resist the bright pink sweet centre, balanced out by the gorgeous dark choc on the outside. Not enough people eat this choc, you don't know what you're all missing! X

I'd like to invite you again to the CookEatShare Author Network. I don’t want the over 1 million unique monthly visitors to CookEatShare.com to miss out on your wonderful food.

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Gosh, that cake looks wonderful !!I have been hanging my nose over Eric Lanalard's new book and had convinced myself there was NO WAY I needed yet another cookbook, but now I'm not so sure !!

The bar of chocolate mould is brilliant.....my favourite chocolate bar is, without a doubt, the Bounty. Either milk or plain, the combination of chocolate and coconut is just heavenly....not to mention incredibly sweet !!

Well....what can i say....."I'M A WINNER" lol. Thank you so much. I've never won anything in my life. I've had to post on here as i can't seem to connect to your email for some reason. My email is sarahcoley@blueyonder.co.ukMaybe if u email me i can send my details that way...Thanks again.xx

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So, the answer to the question you’re all asking: who am I? Well, a superhero never reveals their identity. I think it’s stated somewhere in the contract when you sign up for superhero-dom. Let’s just call me THE CAKED CRUSADER. By day (and night if I’m being honest) a mild-mannered City professional, but at weekends I become THE CAKED CRUSADER. Tirelessly fighting anti-cake propaganda and cake-related injustices – for SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, ALWAYS NEEDS CAKE (we’ll just skip over the fact that it’s usually me).

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I am a 40-something Chartered Accountant working in the square mile.
My main hobbies at the moment are baking, and setting the world record for the number of cake tins owned by one person.
I spend far too much time watching Spongebob Squarepants and would love to try a Krabby Patty...I know, I know - it's not real.